People/voters will unfortunately get hung up in the Triple Crown and the fact Cabrera is on a playoff team while Trout isn't. Cabrera had an excellent year, but it wasn't as good as Trout's. The Triple Crown accomplishment is cool and all, but we need to stop using stats from the early 20th century as accurate measures of offense and value.

Amen!

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RIP Pat Burns -- RIP Alexander Vasyunov and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
Winner of the 2008 Sergei Brylin Award for Most Underrated Poster
Co-Winner of the 2011 Scott Bertoli Award for Best Minor League Poster, Winner of the 2012 Scott Bertoli Award

I don't see how Cabrera can lose the MVP. This hasn't happened in 45 years

Trout had a helluva year. I want Miggy to win it, but I do believe it will be close. Of course, Fish gets Rookie of the Year honors to console him.

..., but we need to stop using stats from the early 20th century as accurate measures of offense and value.

Really? Because baseball has changed so much since then, and getting the triple crown is just soooo common?remember, Cy Young played at the turn of the century, and nobody will ever touch his stats, and if anyone does, it will be an amazing accomplishment, just like Cabrera being able to maintain the lead in all 3 major batting categories. That stat goes beyond numbers and enters into the folklore realm that makes baseball special and therefore making the person doing it a Most Valuable asset to the game and its following.

Keep the MVP in D!

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Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is!Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

The Triple Crown accomplishment is cool and all, but we need to stop using stats from the early 20th century as accurate measures of offense and value.

lol at stats from the early 20th century. This is where I can't take the 'stat revolution' seriously. Particularly when it comes to treating batting average as a garbage stat. There will always be value in being able to get a base hit, very few players can be useful entities hitting .200 (probably nobody that isn't named Adam Dunn). It's pretty hard to get walks - the center of the stat revolution - if you can't get at least get some base hits. Why would anyone pitch around guys that can't hit, unless they're just a major mistake hitter like Dunn or Carlos Pena? And those are the true feast or famine players, you don't need advanced numbers to tell you that.

And a base hit is just flat more valuable than a walk (they get treated as equals these days) - certainly doubles, triples and HR's accomplish more than walks. Some singles also can drive a guy from first to third, or second to home. You can't walk the runner in from third unless the bases are loaded.

There's certainly value in HR's and RBI's, I don't see how that can be denied. HR's are the best thing that can possibly happen when you're at the plate. Statistically, they jack up slugging, which jacks up OPS - another of the newer stats (one that has some value cause it combines real stats, although it's basically a slugger stat since the middle-of-the order hitters have the highest OBP's and slugging percentages). And I don't get the constant poo-poohing of RBI's these days either. Driving in and scoring runs is how you win. Runs produced is a pretty good stat and yet I don't hear it 1% as much as I hear about WAR. And btw WAR says David Wright was more valuable than Cabrera this year too and that's ludicrous. It's a made-up statistic, a computer-generated ranking like college football's BCS ranking.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 05 October 2012 - 07:17 AM.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

Man some of you guys who just think WAR is made-up and has no correlation to the game going on the field are completely lost. At least read how it's created and the DATA behind it before throwing it under the bus as some "made-up nerd stat." And again, who said you even have to use WAR to show Trout was better? OPS+ and wRC+ both rated Trout as a BETTER hitter. I don't even think you need defensive metrics to tell you Trout was a great fielder while Cabrera was predictably bad at 3B either.

Regarding AVG/HR/RBI - you actually could good get a decent feel for whose good and not with this, generally. The problem is that it's also very limited and flawed. I mean think about it... why limit yourself to 3 freakin' statistics? Why would you COMPLETELY ignore the value of OBP? Base hits are more valuable than walks, yes, but I'm not saying AVG is useless; I'm saying looking at that alone (or with HR/RBI) will not tell you enough. What about defense? What about making accurate adjustments for parks/leagues/era and for the positions that players play? I can't imagine why anyone would ignore these things when there are freely-available metrics and data to support them.

And where is this "Mike Trout faded" garbage coming from? He had a 154 wRC+ in September. For reference, Miguel Cabrera's career wRC+ is 148. Or if you want something simpler, how about Trout's September triple slash line: .289/.400./500; so the guy hit for a high AVG, had an elite OBP and SLG, but, for whatever reason, it's stylish to say he faded.

Edited by nmigliore, 05 October 2012 - 08:03 AM.

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LETS GO METSLETS GO DEVILS

"Take all that clubhouse [expletive] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [expletive] for years. Chemistry don't mean [expletive]."

And why make offense the only criteria to winning the MVP as well, which is what we are saying with the triple crown. Trout is arguably the best defensive player in the game and maybe the best base runner this season. WAR is calculating that as well.

Everyone has touched on the RBI notion. Having a ton of RBI meant you had an excellent season, but if you didn;t, it doesn't mean everything. You really need to really peel back the layers to find out why exactly.

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"The Stanley Cup has fallen from the Stars. The new millennium has its first Stanley Cup Champion, and it's the New Jersey Devils." Mike Miller calling the Devils winning the Stanley Cup.

"It goes to the captain and then there are handoffs during a skate around the ice" Mike Emrick as Scott Stevens is being presented the Stanley Cup.

And why make offense the only criteria to winning the MVP as well, which is what we are saying with the triple crown.

The funny thing is, once you delve deeper than just the Triple Crown crap, Trout was actually a better offensive player too. It shows in wOBA, wRC+, OPS+, and Fangraphs' batting runs above average. The crazy thing about that last one (batting runs above average) is that it works as a counting stat and Trout topped Cabrera despite 58 less PA. That's impressive.

Once you include defense and baserunning into the equation, then the race becomes a joke; Cabrera was terrible at those things (-11.5 runs) while Trout was great (+20.1 runs); that's approximately a 3-win difference there. That's huge and shouldn't just be ignored.

Edited by nmigliore, 05 October 2012 - 12:17 PM.

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LETS GO METSLETS GO DEVILS

"Take all that clubhouse [expletive] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [expletive] for years. Chemistry don't mean [expletive]."

The funny thing is, once you delve deeper than just the Triple Crown crap, Trout was actually a better offensive player too. It shows in wOBA, wRC+, OPS+, and Fangraphs' batting runs above average. The crazy thing about that last one (batting runs above average) is that it works as a counting stat and Trout topped Cabrera despite 58 less PA. That's impressive.

Once you include defense and baserunning into the equation, then the race becomes a joke; Cabrera was terrible at those things (-11.5 runs) while Trout was great (+20.1 runs); that's approximately a 3-win difference there. That's huge and shouldn't just be ignored. Not to mention, again, you probably didn't even need metrics to tell you any of this last bit.

I'm with you. But most will just look at the HR and RBI total to say who had the better offensive year. No point in even really debating this since we know what the voters will do. I mean some of them have just figured out we need to decide the Cy Young by something other than win totals.

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"The Stanley Cup has fallen from the Stars. The new millennium has its first Stanley Cup Champion, and it's the New Jersey Devils." Mike Miller calling the Devils winning the Stanley Cup.

"It goes to the captain and then there are handoffs during a skate around the ice" Mike Emrick as Scott Stevens is being presented the Stanley Cup.

And now Guillen is fired after Miami posts the same record as Boston. Isn't it crazy the way the Marlins go through coaches? It's like they're looking for a new coach every offseason. What kind of professional organization does that?

And now Guillen is fired after Miami posts the same record as Boston. Isn't it crazy the way the Marlins go through coaches? It's like they're looking for a new coach every offseason. What kind of professional organization does that?

A-Rod for player-manager of the Miami Marlins!

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RIP Pat Burns -- RIP Alexander Vasyunov and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
Winner of the 2008 Sergei Brylin Award for Most Underrated Poster
Co-Winner of the 2011 Scott Bertoli Award for Best Minor League Poster, Winner of the 2012 Scott Bertoli Award

The Marlins pull this act often (including dumping players). Also, their own mayor burned them:

The mayor of Miami stepped in it recently when he said that if Fidel Castro dies and there are big rallies and protests and things in Miami, that “protestors go to the Orange Bowl.” Of course there is no Orange Bowl anymore. That’s where Marlins Park sits.

The mayor corrected himself and noted he was speaking from an old script. Then he added that, no, people should not go to the same location because …

“I don’t think the Marlins would want that … Knowing them, they would charge to protest.”

Zing!

Edited by nmigliore, 24 October 2012 - 09:03 AM.

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LETS GO METSLETS GO DEVILS

"Take all that clubhouse [expletive] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [expletive] for years. Chemistry don't mean [expletive]."

lol at stats from the early 20th century. This is where I can't take the 'stat revolution' seriously. Particularly when it comes to treating batting average as a garbage stat. There will always be value in being able to get a base hit, very few players can be useful entities hitting .200 (probably nobody that isn't named Adam Dunn). It's pretty hard to get walks - the center of the stat revolution - if you can't get at least get some base hits. Why would anyone pitch around guys that can't hit, unless they're just a major mistake hitter like Dunn or Carlos Pena? And those are the true feast or famine players, you don't need advanced numbers to tell you that.

And a base hit is just flat more valuable than a walk (they get treated as equals these days) - certainly doubles, triples and HR's accomplish more than walks. Some singles also can drive a guy from first to third, or second to home. You can't walk the runner in from third unless the bases are loaded.

There's certainly value in HR's and RBI's, I don't see how that can be denied. HR's are the best thing that can possibly happen when you're at the plate. Statistically, they jack up slugging, which jacks up OPS - another of the newer stats (one that has some value cause it combines real stats, although it's basically a slugger stat since the middle-of-the order hitters have the highest OBP's and slugging percentages). And I don't get the constant poo-poohing of RBI's these days either. Driving in and scoring runs is how you win. Runs produced is a pretty good stat and yet I don't hear it 1% as much as I hear about WAR. And btw WAR says David Wright was more valuable than Cabrera this year too and that's ludicrous. It's a made-up statistic, a computer-generated ranking like college football's BCS ranking.

Admittedly, quite a few sabermetricians can come off as alternately pompous and annoying...some would-be sabes guys watch "Moneyball" (an extremely flawed movie that left out a LOT of facts and revised a lot of history...it's entertaining enough, but full of falsehoods), read up a little on advanced metrics, and become instant know-it-alls who won't listen to anyone who doesn't agree with them or doesn't see things exactly as they do...suddenly they think they're Billy Beane. This kind of sabes guy isn't right about eveything, but he sure thinks he is.

That being said, a lot of the sabes and newer stats out there do a very nice job fleshing out those "early 20th century" numbers, especially on offense...for so long it was just BA, HR, and RBI. It's easy to see a high RBI total and say "Man, that guy's an RBI beast!", but as some have pointed out, there's more than meets the eye that goes into RBI totals...how many opportunities does a guy get to drive in runs, etc. You can have a lousy BA with RISP but still drive in over 100 runs if the guys in front of you are getting on base at a high clip. Obviously it's going to help if there's runners to drive in!

In fairness to some people over-emphasizing OB% (and I agree, you need guys who get on base, but can still be counted on to get actual base hits when needed), Billy Beane and those of his ilk also emphasized slugging%, so they were looking for guys who could get on base AND provide some power when they made contact...best of all worlds, really. To put it simply, it's not so bad if the guy is hitting .265 if he's drawing a reasonable number of walks AND getting a nice chunk of extra base hits...if he's getting on base 35% of the time and slugging .450 or so, .265 is just fine.

I'll never buy into the "no such thing as clutch" argument, and the sabes guys will tell you that one over and over again, because it can't be as sharply defined statistically as other player attributes, or neatly wrapped up in an acronym. No one gets it done 100% of the time, especially in a high-failure rate game like baseball, but some guys clearly have "the knack" for getting it done in the big spots (not all of the time, but enough so they are remembered as such), while others clearly get that deer-in-the-headlights look in the same spot, or aren't nearly as productive. My main problem with sabes is that sabermetricians have a way of looking at players like they're almost robotic, a bunch of Mr. Spocks, and all equal above the neck...clearly they're not...some guys clearly wilt on the big stage in defining moments.

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976, 24 October 2012 - 02:10 PM.

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THE NHL MUST LOVE THE DEVILS - from who else? A RANGER fan![Mark Messier]: A big, bald attention whore with a stupid Easter Island-lookin face. - from who else? DaneykoIsGod!

Even when Marty comes back maybe Larry should put Clemmensen to be on the goal during the shootouts.Can the coach do that ? Switch the goalies 5 seconds to go in overtime? - Most priceless quote ever posted on a message board.

Martin Brodeur: THE MOST ALL-TIME WINS!, 12 straight seasons of 30+ wins, 3 Stanley Cups, 4 Vezina Trophies, and zero respect from too many so-called Devils "fans" who are either too young or too bandwagon to remember the much darker days of Sean Burke, Craig Billington, Bob Sauve, Alain Chevrier, and the talented but overwhelmed Chico Resch, among many others.

It's easy to support a great player when he's playing at his very best. It takes a true fan to support that same player during those rare moments and stretches when he's not. Babe Ruth went 0-4 some games, and sometimes Wayne Gretzky was held pointless. There may be such a thing as greatness, but no such thing as absolute perfection every single night.

#30 FOREVER!

20 out of 1,946 njdevs.com members agree: CR1976 is the Most Knowledgable Poster of 2008! Victory is mine...oh yes, victory is mine!

I strongly dislike the Marlins but I feel absoultey horrible for their fans, not only for blowing the team up once again, but for all the public money that went into the new stadium (subsidized 70 percent of his $515 million ballpark in Miami.). Loria is a dick.

I still have to look into the prospects going to the Marlins but looking at what the Jays recieved they have to be cautiously excited in my opinon. I'd be concerned about Reyes on turf and Buehrle in the AL East. Still nice to see them doing their best to make it more competitive, makes it more exciting of a regular season now.

Marisnick and Nicolino are solid prospects but the rest of that package is really underwhelming. There's certainly risk in the Reyes deal and Johnson is a free agent after 2013, but they should still be pretty ecstatic about this deal. The Reyes, Johnson, and Buehrle trio could add about 10 wins to the Jays next year.

Edited by nmigliore, 14 November 2012 - 12:44 AM.

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LETS GO METSLETS GO DEVILS

"Take all that clubhouse [expletive] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [expletive] for years. Chemistry don't mean [expletive]."

THE NHL MUST LOVE THE DEVILS - from who else? A RANGER fan![Mark Messier]: A big, bald attention whore with a stupid Easter Island-lookin face. - from who else? DaneykoIsGod!

Even when Marty comes back maybe Larry should put Clemmensen to be on the goal during the shootouts.Can the coach do that ? Switch the goalies 5 seconds to go in overtime? - Most priceless quote ever posted on a message board.

Martin Brodeur: THE MOST ALL-TIME WINS!, 12 straight seasons of 30+ wins, 3 Stanley Cups, 4 Vezina Trophies, and zero respect from too many so-called Devils "fans" who are either too young or too bandwagon to remember the much darker days of Sean Burke, Craig Billington, Bob Sauve, Alain Chevrier, and the talented but overwhelmed Chico Resch, among many others.

It's easy to support a great player when he's playing at his very best. It takes a true fan to support that same player during those rare moments and stretches when he's not. Babe Ruth went 0-4 some games, and sometimes Wayne Gretzky was held pointless. There may be such a thing as greatness, but no such thing as absolute perfection every single night.

#30 FOREVER!

20 out of 1,946 njdevs.com members agree: CR1976 is the Most Knowledgable Poster of 2008! Victory is mine...oh yes, victory is mine!

Bud really needs to invoke the 'best interests of baseball' clause and nix this trade and then get rid of Loria the way he got rid of the guy in LA. I mean, I know the Marlins make this kind of thing a habit (buy a team one year, sell it off the next) but I don't remember a single trade as egregious as this in terms of players given up and not getting anyone of real note back. Even the Sox' salary dump they at least got Matt Kemp back. Plus the Sox weren't trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes the way the Marlins did, when they bought people to fill the new park, all the while subtly backloading deals and not paying anyone the first year so they could sell them off after the season and profit handsomely.

Damn...wonder how Reyes feels about this.

Probably mixed emotions...he's going to a place he wouldn't have ever picked if you gave him a dozen choices, but he's also going to a winning team. Even he has to see that place is a nuthouse and not worth staying in.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 14 November 2012 - 08:00 AM.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

It's not a bad baseball trade for the Marlins at all, but as a fan and for the city of Miami, it is disgusting. What is Selig going to do? He has allowed Loria to do things like this for the last 12 years and helped him along the way.

I have called Loria a genius for years ( a long with scrumbag, a$$hole, turd), and this continues it. He doesn't give a sh!t about how it makes him look as long as he comes away with boatloads of cash. And he has. The Marlins have been top 3 in profit since he owned the team. Spend nothing and rake in millions from revenue sharing. He also pays himself a ton of cash due to some nifty accounting work (upwards of $15-20 million according to deadspin). So attendance suffers like crazy but he rid himself of how much salary yesterday?

This hopefully puts an end to any public funding for a new arena or stadium. This one will cost $2.4 billion when it is all said and done.

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"The Stanley Cup has fallen from the Stars. The new millennium has its first Stanley Cup Champion, and it's the New Jersey Devils." Mike Miller calling the Devils winning the Stanley Cup.

"It goes to the captain and then there are handoffs during a skate around the ice" Mike Emrick as Scott Stevens is being presented the Stanley Cup.

Bud really needs to invoke the 'best interests of baseball' clause and nix this trade and then get rid of Loria the way he got rid of the guy in LA. I mean, I know the Marlins make this kind of thing a habit (buy a team one year, sell it off the next) but I don't remember a single trade as egregious as this in terms of players given up and not getting anyone of real note back. Even the Sox' salary dump they at least got Matt Kemp back. Plus the Sox weren't trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes the way the Marlins did, when they bought people to fill the new park, all the while subtly backloading deals and not paying anyone the first year so they could sell them off after the season and profit handsomely.

I'm confused about the Kemp thing. The Marlins got a lot more than the Sox did for their salary dump.

Edited by devilsrule33, 14 November 2012 - 02:07 PM.

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"The Stanley Cup has fallen from the Stars. The new millennium has its first Stanley Cup Champion, and it's the New Jersey Devils." Mike Miller calling the Devils winning the Stanley Cup.

"It goes to the captain and then there are handoffs during a skate around the ice" Mike Emrick as Scott Stevens is being presented the Stanley Cup.